The top 16 battles was now starting. Ning could see a few people he recognized make it into those rank. Hijaka was one of them. With his dual body and Qi cultivation, his fighting strength was really high.
Next was that orange robed man he hated, Gai. The next one was the orange robed man he helped the Flood Dragon kill whose cultivation base was higher than him. He had found out that this was the man named Faran, the 2nd ranking participant from the secret realm.
Another one of the people he knew was the leader of the group of 5 that tried to use the charm girl to lure people into their formation and kill them.
He had surprisingly made this far up. However, this was going to be his final match since all the remaining ones all were in the 1st Foundation Establishment realm.
The host started picking two names from the box to start the top 16 matches.
"No 10 and No 76"
Hijaka stood up and walked to the front of the stage. From the other side, Jan walked in.
'Oh, this guy was here too,' Ning thought when he saw him. He hadn't been paying attention much and had missed his fights.
'Well, I guess this is where he loses,' Ning thought and watched. The guy named Jan used his swords to fight and send out very strong attacks. With his massively strong attacks, even with his strong body, Hijaka couldn't handle it at all.
After a few minutes of struggle, Jan drove a sword right into his chest. The talisman lit up and Hijaka was brought out of the stage. He had lost.
Hijaka was sad, but he knew he was dealt a bad hand. The opponents were just too strong for him. He turned towards Ning, far in the audience seat and made a saddened face, but Ning just shook his head and gave him a smile.
Hijaka got a little less sad and smiled as well before walking towards his own seating area.
The next few fights went for a little longer than Ning expected. The fighters were almost equally strong, so in the end it came down to a battle of wits, knowledge and endurance.
After 4 different matches, he was finally called to fight a 1st Foundation Established realm cultivator. His opponent was a girl who called out 2 beasts the moment she saw him on stage. He was the one they all feared, so when she found out it was him who would be fighting, she didn't hold back.
Her two beasts were also at the same cultivation base as herself. One of the beast was a large vulture with a really long neck. The other beast was actually a large centipede that crawled along the ground.
Ning smiled when he saw this, "finally, there's something fun to do." He didn't participate in this match by himself. Instead, he called out someone else to fight for him.
"Come out, Aegis," he said and Aegis suddenly appeared in front of him. The 2 meter tall body with the additional meter trident like horn was unique to the audience.
The girl frowned a little and asked, "Why is your silver beetle golden? Did you paint it so other's wouldn't find out?"
"Haha, this is not a silver beetle, its something better. You'll see," Ning said and gave a single command to Aegis.
"Kill"
Aegis immediately flew away and went for the centipede. It was the thing protecting the girl so Aegis tried to get rid of it instead.
While it wasn't the fastest flying beast, Aegis still surprised the girl with how fast it flew. "How?" she felt a little shocked. From her knowledge, this was something impossible for the Great Shelled Silver Beetle.
Aegis swiped both of it's right arm at the centipede. The centipede also jumped to attack Aegis. Aegis got hit in the chest, while the centipede got hit in the face and neck and started bleeding.
The girl looked at her centipede, then towards Aegis. While her similarly powerful beast was bleeding, the beetle was perfectly fine.
Golden Shelled beetles could block a lot of damage from their back and only a fraction of that from the front. However, that did not mean that their front was weak. It just meant that their back was abnormally strong.
The vulture immediately flew and sent gusts of wind towards Aegis. The winds contained many small wind blades that would cut everywhere. To counter this, Aegis simply turned around.
All the wind blades landed on him, but none actually worked.
"GO!" the girl shouted.
Both the centipede and the vulture rushed towards Aegis. Both of them attacked him at once, however, all the attacks landed on his back, so he was fine despite the barrage.
Suddenly, he opened his winds and flew up. As soon as he was high enough, he did a U-turn and returned towards the vulture. His horns started to turn golden and shined.
The vulture sent out massive wind slices with its wings, but it didn't work. Aegis' horn pierced through the vulture's wings, and the vulture cried out in pain.
The girl was surprised and immediately took the vulture back. However, Aegis wasn't done yet. He flew up once again and turned around before flying down very fast. This time however, his horn didn't shine.
Instead, he slowly shifted his body such that his body was what was going to attack the centipede. He was planning on stomping it.
The girl felt horrified when she saw that. She was still worried about Ning himself moving if she took part in the battle as well.
"No!" the girl shouted and called back the centipede into her beast bag as well.
BOOM
Aegis landed on empty space. If she had been a split second late at calling her beast back, she would've probably lost it today.
The dust settled and the confused look of the beetle was what showed through it. After not finding either of the beasts, he turned towards the girl as she was his main target to begin with.
The girl didn't hesitate a single second and shouted out loud. "I give up."
